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Oh, several. I had a wife and a brother die horribly in searing pain after long illnesses, my mother died in a car accident, and my first marriage was an emotionally abusive grinder 15 years long that I am mostly blocked on -- I can't even really remember most of it enough to talk to my current wife about it when she wants to know about it. Before that experience I didn't believe that people could literally blank on things, but apparently it actually happens.
Somewhere in there I lost my faith, which was a major life change, and I've been through two professional reinventions. As others have suggested, enough of this stuff leaves you, to an extent, waiting for the other shoe to drop, as you learn first-hand the impermanence of all things, and the fecklessness of gods and lovers and friends.
On the other hand, things have gone right in my life, a couple of them spectacularly so, and it all has an endpoint I can look forward to. There is a serenity that comes from getting older, where the unthinkable has happened already and there's less and less time for life to have another go at you. Less and less to worry about. Dignity is gone so you don't have to protect it, etc.
I thought I did, until I heard some of the stories from my students who were incarcerated. That experience made me realize that some people never had a chance. Some people are born, literally, fifty miles behind the starting point of this race. Some people are born within five feet of the finishing line, and run backwards. They think their lives are traumatic. And create more.
This is really true. When I was younger, I wondered why certain people didn't DO something to make their own lives better, even when they were born poor or with bad parents or whatever. In my mind, they could look out and see something better and go for it, if they wanted to. And a few do--but a very few. Most of them can never stretch their minds that far to even grasp the concept of something different.
I struggled with this again last week. There's a rundown city not far from me from whence comes my local newspaper, and EVERY DAMN WEEK there is another shooting of a young black person in that city. Every effing week. This is their normal. And yet--the mothers still have their kids and raise them in this environment. The newspaper's website had a video of the mother of the latest young man, a 20-year-old dead from a shooting. She was in a nearby backyard--just hanging out in a backyard in a neighborhood where people regularly shoot one another--and she heard the shots and got the call a few minutes later that it was her kid. I watched it. She seems of relatively good intelligence and my heart went out to her--she is genuinely grieving for that dead son. But-but-but another part of me wants to scream, WHY DO YOU LIVE THERE????? WHY DID YOU DELIBERATELY AND CONSCIOUSLY RAISE A CHILD IN SUCH A HELLHOLE WHEN YOU KNEW THAT THERE WAS A GOOD CHANCE HE WOULD END UP WITH A BULLET IN HIM ON THE STREET? AND NOW YOU GRIEVE WHEN WHAT WE ALL COULD HAVE PREDICTED HAS HAPPENED????
In MY mind, I would have done anything--ANYTHING--to get my ass and that of my child up and away to another place long ago, not caring who or what I left behind or maybe that I had to be the poorest schlub in a better neighborhood. But this woman and her kid and all the others and their kids who will die this month and next month and next year just stay there.
And I know I can't understand and never will because I am not in that world.
Anyway, no matter what the circumstances, I'd rather experience 9/11 every day than the loss of a child. That has to be the worst.
Left a 20+ year abusive marriage and moved to Mississippi for a new start. Within one year, I found myself swimming out of my house and ended up riding out hurricane Katrina on the roof of my car, holding my dogs and cats. I watched as all my belongings floated out the door and into the flood.
We hear a lot about the selfless actions of many who helped, but in my experience I saw and experienced a whole lot of cheating, stealing, nastiness and selfishness after the storm. Most of this occurred in my church, of which most members were not seriously affected by the storm since they lived beyond the storm surge. It really was a hard pill to swallow and it has definitely changed me, probably not for the better. I haven't been back to church since that experience and feel finding an genuine Christian in one is like finding a needle in a haystack.
Watching my grandfather wither away. He had leukemia, and we took care of him until his last day. Watching him go from busy fixing up the house, gardening, hunting, to him not being able to get himself out of bed to use the restroom. Gives you an appreciation for life. It's been 16 years, and it still pains me when I think about it.
Left a 20+ year abusive marriage and moved to Mississippi for a new start. Within one year, I found myself swimming out of my house and ended up riding out hurricane Katrina on the roof of my car, holding my dogs and cats. I watched as all my belongings floated out the door and into the flood.
We hear a lot about the selfless actions of many who helped, but in my experience I saw and experienced a whole lot of cheating, stealing, nastiness and selfishness after the storm. Most of this occurred in my church, of which most members were not seriously affected by the storm since they lived beyond the storm surge. It really was a hard pill to swallow and it has definitely changed me, probably not for the better. I haven't been back to church since that experience and feel finding an genuine Christian in one is like finding a needle in a haystack.
I am sorry for what happened to you--that sounds horrible. And I'm sorry about how it affected your faith.
I had a terrible time with the church after 9/11. (Actually, I was struggling with my faith WHEN 9/11 happened). So many of the churches in my area jumped on the event as a membership drive tool. It was despicable to watch. And I attended a town service shortly afterward where the local ministers were getting up and saying everything's all right--when it wasn't, it wasn't "all right" at all--and more or less putting down all those who were not Christian as the bad guys instead of placing the blame on the actual perpetrators...and here I was, a survivor with Muslim and Jew and Hindu and atheist and who knows what other types of fellow survivors and co-workers who had run out of those buildings and who were as traumatized as I was that a place where all sorts of people who got along had been destroyed by hatred...and watching the CHURCH trying to divide and conquer at a time when we needed to come together more than ever.
Almost ten years later, I finally found a place in a church, because I have never been able to completely shake my faith away, but it's very different and not really acceptable to a lot of other churches. We welcome everyone without judgment, and the focus is on the individual becoming a better person and having a sense of social justice, and the lessons always boil down to Love God and Love Your Neighbor, and that's it. Everything else is up for discussion and questioning.
My first marriage. I was young and was preyed on by an older women who essentially used me/took everything I had and moved on. There is more than that, horrific stuff, but I am not comfortable putting it in a public forum. How it relates to this post is that something left me from a psychological standpoint, and never returned. Something not good happened physiologically, tangibly, and has never gone back to the way it was pre-marriage.
Later, my cat died. This cat was more than just a pet. Again ~ dont want to discuss, publicly, but this, combined with my age and the ages of people around me has me obsessing on death and other mortality issues. My cat was the trigger.
Yes--when I was a little kid (I think between six and eight years old), I went on a field trip with my class. On the way, out of the window, I saw a cemetery, which literally scared the living daylights out of me. I then became extremely afraid of death and deluded myself into believing that I will life forever. Of course, once I became older and more mature, I began seriously thinking about things such as croygenic preservation, et cetera.
No, as a matter of fact, I haven't. Everything that has ever happened to me, I was able to stoically take in stride and step over it, or just back away and move on with my life through a different trajectory.
Yes I have when I was stabbed 17 times (by my sisters ex boyfriend ) my sister passed away that night . Being on the floor and bleeding . Being in the ambulance and being asked ?s by a detective telling me that I probably would not survive the night . The ambulance guy holding my hand and telling me not to listen to that jerk to snap back and prove that jerk wrong . I remember going into the operating room and the surgeon saying God what a mess after that nothing and I woke up three days later . my aunt and uncle were there and the nurse whispered that they had been there for three days .I was 19 when this happened , I will never ever forget it .I never got to say thank you to that ambulance driver I thought I was a goner after that detective talked to me .
Oh yes, absolutely. I've experienced several traumatic incidents. Raped at 20 and I was still a virgin at that point. It left me feeling disgusting and like trash. To this day I still place most of the blame on myself. The police were never notified because I was too embarrassed and ashamed; I didn't think anyone would believe me anyway. A few months after it happened, I saw the guy walking downtown. Had a panic attack so bad I nearly drove over the bridge. It's still hard to trust men, but I try. Really, I do. But when I begin to trust, something happens that shatters it to pieces. Memories of it come back all the time. I can still smell him. His voice. All of it. I'm honestly shocked I haven't committed suicide.
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